


Interstellar

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, romantic sheith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 16:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12370023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Shiro and Keith both have a lot of baggage to unpack.Mostly a piece dealing with canon events through introspection with added Sheith pining. Might be nsfw in later chapters if I keep going with it. First time trying Shiro's PoV, etc.





	Interstellar

The textbooks call it "losing time," and it's a symptom many trauma survivors experience. He knew that; but to Takashi Shirogane it wasn't a psychiatric term, it was terror incarnate, and it was his reality. So far he'd been lucky; the switch had only flipped in battle a couple of times, and Keith or Pidge had been there to carry the mission. Every instance was one that he chipped away from the block of his titanium guard, storing it away in the hopes that it might not tarnish any further the thin veneer he wore day in and day out. 

The fear was something that he must not show, not a glimpse—even for a moment. 

He knew this even as he came to his senses sitting in the lounge, his knees up to his chin with no recollection of how he'd gotten there or for how long he'd been out of it. Shiro ended up there often when he had no trajectory. It was a place that felt safe; sunken in like someplace good for hiding. Hiding—He was a hero. _Champion_. People with those titles had no interest in hiding. 

He took a deep breath and straightened his limbs out, tense and sore from what he could only assume was the aftermath of a panic attack. Had he tried to take a nap? Sleeping rarely went well for him, since he'd finally seen freedom. _Freedom_ —to save his people from the Galra threat. That was it right? He'd headed straight for Earth to warn them. Everything else was fuzzy. 

That train of thought never treated him well, and Shiro quickly distracted himself from it. He got to his feet and stretched, groaned at the aches and pains. His shoulder ached, though the radial pain that once would have shot down into his elbow was gone, like the flesh and bone that had once been. A man his age shouldn't feel so worn down, but... it was what it was. 

Rubbing his temple, he made his way ploddingly to the kitchen in search of a drink; the closest thing he'd managed to find to coffee, thanks to Hunk's ingenuity in the culinary field. He hunched over the counter in the galley, hands cupping the warm glassware—and only just managed to straighten up and look halfway casual at the sound of footsteps rounding the corner. 

He leaned against the counter with his elbow, an easy smile finding his lips that made the corners of his eyes crinkle just a bit as he greeted Pidge as she made her way inside, yawning and a bit red-eyed. 

"Hey you. Are you okay? You look kinda rough." He asked, head tilted slightly—tone warm and steady. No show of any distress whatsoever. 

"I'm good. Fine. Just been nose deep in some stuff I downloaded onto my reader. Altean is a lot harder to learn than it looks." Another one of those nights when the Green Paladin had likely forgone sleep to chase some inkling or another. Not surprising. An endearing trait, as always.

Shiro gave a sympathetic look, brows raised as he sipped at the warm drink in his hands. "Well. You'd think it'd be the least we could do: Making a real effort at learning the language. Tell me more about it. You have to teach me some words!" 

He exuded warmth while the pressure in his chest withered like a black hole threatening to make him collapse in on himself. 

\------ 

When Keith slept, it was in short stints—military naps. He was always tired, but sleep only brought nightmares and ate up time. _Time_. He was more concerned with it now than he had ever been. More concerned with time than he was when he watched Shiro wave goodbye on the shuttle that would take him to the ship he'd fly to Kerberos. More than when he and the crew had been pronounced dead. More than when he'd heard the words "Galra blood flows in your veins." 

Keith was a brush fire, wild and unwieldy and uncontrollable, a snake eating its own tail that could only be stopped with more fire, more destruction. A part of him had known this from a young age—now he only knew the answer to "why." 

The self-loathing wasn't new, it just finally had a name. Half-breed. Hybrid. Galra. The Enemy.

It buried itself in Hunk's teasing remarks, the jokes about whether or not he may sprout a tail or his skin start to look more violet hued than usual—at a moment's notice. Keith knew he didn't mean anything by it, but the feeling the words caused remained lodged in his chest: a wound that couldn't heal. Even Allura's apology was something that wavered, a mirage in the desert of the home he'd made for himself. It was sincere, but could he feel it? Keith wasn't sure anymore what he felt. 

It was better this way: to pull away until they couldn't hurt him anymore even on accident. They were good: human, or Altean. Not at all like what he was. 

There were people on Earth who believed with the Blades did as well. An age old belief: The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. That, at least was something Keith could find peace in. 

When the nightmares came again, he took to wandering the corridors of the Castle of Lions. The wandering always led him to one of two places: the training room, or the space outside of Shiro's door. 

It was a weird thing, really that he thought of it that way. It was liminal, not the idea that it was simply him standing in a hallway—it was the space that was in between them. The division that separated the wounded insides that each man continued to desperately try to hide from the other. Keith thought it was because Shiro was older and knew how to cope better, and he hid because he was young and volatile and anti-social. 

The division itself, the blockade between himself and the person in the world he had felt most connected to in his entire life was the real source of the thorn in his side that refused to heal. 

Keith lost track of time standing there. Like many nights, he did not knock or seek the other paladin's presence. 

He had simply waited for his thoughts, his _bitterness_ to play itself out before he prepared to turn on his heel and head back. 

"Keith?" Shiro's voice made him freeze in his tracks, palms sweating at the embarrassing notion of being caught. 

"Yeah, Shiro? What's up?" He asked as though Shiro had been the one seeking him out, loitering by the door to his personal room—rather than the other way around. 

"I was just helping Pidge with some stuff. What are you doing here...? **Awake**?" Shiro... looked tired. 

Keith pursed his lips into a frown, the urge to find a way to bolt—politely—strong enough to make him unable to meet the older man's eyes. 

"I uh. Was just. Going on a walk. I do that a lot when I can't sleep." Keith answered, as though it weren't a bit obvious. 

Shiro made his way further down the hall from the corner he'd turned and leaned against the wall. He looked then, tired in a way that Keith couldn't describe. He poured out so much, but did he ever get the chance to re-fill that seemingly endless vessel that he poured from? The thought made it hard to breathe for reasons Keith couldn't explain to himself. 

"Sleep... Could use some of that myself." He was close enough then for Keith to smell the scent of coffee and his shampoo, so very centrally _Shiro_ in what they were that it nearly made him want to cry. 

"Do you ever get homesick?" Keith asked suddenly, a short glance up to Shiro's eyes wasted as he cast his violet gaze away almost immediately. 

"Homesick? Well, yeah I guess. But... I had a long time to think that I'd never see Earth again. Ah—that's. A little dark, huh." Shiro seemed to regret speaking so candidly, but Keith clung to the words like a starving man. 

He reached out, laying his hand on Shiro's good arm. "I... Man, sorry I'm so tired it's hard to think straight. I'm saying dumb stuff. You don't have to talk about it." 

Perhaps it was the vulnerability, or the strange liminality of the moment—but Shiro too; a bit starved for sleep and just simple comfort, paused and turned his hand to tug gently on Keith's arm as the door to his room slid open. The soft rush of air made his hair billow around his face, and the sudden light made the dark circles under the younger paladin's eyes evident. 

"You need sleep. Probably more than I do." Shiro didn't ask or explain, and Keith... honestly didn't need him to. 

Feeling weak but more than in safe hands, Keith stumbled after Shiro, a bit thrown off by the shift in his own center of gravity. They paused only long enough to toe out of their boots before Keith found himself pulled in to Shiro's chest, the warmth of his arms tight around his shoulders as he pulled him into bed. 

"Okay. I'll sleep but only if you do too." Keith said, retaining that stubborn urge to resist to the very end. 

"Deal." Though—that stubbornness fled as he all but went boneless in Shiro's arms, awash in a mix of warm nostalgia and frightening newness. 

It wasn't as though he and Shiro weren't physically affectionate with each other rather regularly. It was just... natural. He didn't think about it, or try to label it. No one would fight him on the well documented fact that Shiro meant more to him than anyone. 

But—since the beginning of their part in the war against Zarkon there hadn't been much room for that. Subtle touches here or there, a tight, lingering hug before a big mission—but the kisses in the dark? The wild, strange, unbridled sensuality that he had found and reclaimed through Shiro's gentle strength? There just wasn't room or time-- 

None of that mattered though, when Shiro buried his face in the curve of Keith's neck to breathe as though he were life itself. Whatever doubts had plagued him vanished as he drifted off into a deep and blessedly dreamless sleep for the first time in weeks.


End file.
